First Attempt
by littlegreenghost
Summary: Luna/Neville. It's taking its time. Not quite sure about direction yet. M for occasional gratuitous profanity(just to be safe) and possible things happening later down the line. I don't own these people. The honorable J.K. Rowling does. She has all the rights to them, to Hogwarts, all of it. So romance and angst I guess. Slow updates.
1. Chapter 1

**First attempt**

 _But I don't think I'm ready yet_

 _Not feeling up to it now_

 _Just not that steady yet_

 _And I don't need you telling me how_

" _Not Ready Yet" by Eels_

 **1.**

Luna was star-gazing. Just to avoid having to meet anyone's eyes. Her own glided from Orion to Sagittarius to the tops of the high Gothic windows that faded into the night sky. The Great Hall was especially noisy tonight. Bits of food flying here and there. She supposed it had something to do with that Harry Potter getting his name pulled out of the Goblet of Fire. The Hufflepuffs were scowling.

The werewolf was probably behind it all. Yes, he would want to take revenge on Professor Snape for revealing his secret. Professor Snape hated Harry; you could see the energy exploding in his eyes whenever they looked at each other. Professor Snape was a man of fire. Luna liked him. She spent his class throwing whatever she wanted into her potions. Every now and then, she'd think she'd created something. She'd found something. She sometimes thought she was experimenting. Then she'd realize it was impossible. She knew it was impossible. But she only half believed it. She'd figure it out someday. What exactly she wasn't sure. Two years and two months or so of trying hadn't left her with nothing… If holding on was unhealthy, she wanted to be sick. Sick as a pig.

As her eyes started to slide back into focus, she realized she was peering intently into the face of a boy at the Gryffindor table. He was looking at her. Looking at her quite strangely. Luna had seen this boy before, she was sure of it. He normally had a very confused or very worried look on his face, but now it was a mixture of both with just a hint of of wonderment. Luna stared more deeply into his face, wanting to study the crevices and shapes that made up this new expression. She traced the little crease between his eyebrows(or, rather, the 20 feet of air between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables) with her right index finger, and wondered if it would feel particularly bumpy. As she did this, the boy's face crossed over from confused/worried/wonderment to confused/worried/frightened, and he turned away. Luna went back to stargazing.

Neville wasn't sure. Then again, he never really was, ever. The weird blonde girl had been staring at him all through dinner. He wondered, nervously, what that meant. Neville didn't understand most(or rather, any) girls, but that girl wasn't most girls, if half of what he had heard was true. She was looking up at the ceiling again. Neville looked up too, just in case there was something important up there he had missed. He could never be too careful. But there was nothing there- just stars. He shook his head slightly. As he did this, his gaze fell on Harry and Ron, who were glaring daggers at each other. Hermione was watching them anxiously. Fred and George were sitting next to her, telling jokes to Ginny, who would alternately giggle like a small child or say something snarky of her own.

"What did the leper say to the prostitute?" Fred smirked.

"Oh God, I don't want to know," Ginny said, rolling her eyes.

"Keep the tip," the twins said in unison.

"Oh Christ," Ginny snorted. "That's it. I'm off."

"Please don't go; you'll miss the excellent one about the lonely muggle woman and the rapidly backfiring wand."

"No! That's disgusting!" But she smiled as turned and walked away.

"Hermione!" Fred rounded on her, grinning broadly. "Would _you_ like to hear the excellent one about the lonely muggle woman and the rapidly backfiring wand?"

"Not now, Fred," she said softly, and muttered something like "four essays to write" and practically sprinted to the library.

Neville looked down at his half-eaten treacle tart. The smell of it was suddenly overpowering. He stared at it until he was tired enough to justify wanting to go back to the dormitories so early. He got up from the table and slowly walked towards Gryffindor tower. He made sure not to lift his feet to far off the ground: he didn't want to get there too fast.

"Oi, Longbottom." Draco Malfoy. Neville eyed him warily. "How much do you wanna bet Potter's sucking Dumbledore's cock for house points?"

Neville blinked slowly, trying to think of a clever rebuttal. He settled on "Piss off, Malfoy" and walked on.

There weren't very many people in the Gryffindor common room. Just a few seventh years, and one second year. All were doing what appeared to be Transfiguration homework. None of them looked up when he climbed through the portrait hole. After all, he was only Neville. He trudged up the spiral staircase to the boy's dormitories and promptly threw himself onto his bed. He seemed to have landed on something rather lumpy… Neville shot up, fearing the worst: giant cockroaches, shrunken heads, whatever Fred and George had been working on lately(this prospect was by far the most frightening) all passed before his mind's eye. He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and threw back the covers. It was only Trevor. Neville collapsed on his bed, breathing heavily and suddenly aware of how cold and sweaty he was. But the others were coming back…

"Blimey, Neville, look at the state of you," Dean Thomas said. "Do you have a fever or something?"

"No, no…" said Neville. "Just getting into bed…"

And he climbed into bed, carefully maneuvering around Trevor the toad.


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

Luna woke up unusually early. Normally, she stayed up very late and woke up with just enough time to throw on some clothes before breakfast. Not today, though. Today, she was going down to meet the sunrise. She hummed softly as she put on her butterbeer cork necklace, carefully laying it flat over her robes. She skipped downstairs and out the castle doors. It was surprising that they would be open so early. The sun was already starting to dye the glassy surface of the lake a soft pale pink. Lilac in one corner. Pale blue in another. The bottom edge of the pink was starting to stain gold as the sun climbed over the hills and the tops of the trees in the Forbidden Forest. Luna made her way down to the beech tree by the edge of the lake. She sat down under it with the gliding grace of a ghost and watched the leaves glow bright golden yellow as the sun lit them from behind. She loved the fall colors. She shivered slightly as the leaves trembled in the cold breeze. Early November, she remembered. The pink faded fast as the sky returned to its normal blue. Luna twisted around to look at the castle. At least fifteen more windows were lit, but it was hard to tell with the brightness of the morning sun. Something moving through the leaves of the beech tree arrested her attention. That could only be one thing. A Bluebottle Trushslug. They loved this kind of tree- ideal for building nesting colonies. Luna was itching to capture a specimen of the world's only flying gastropod, but it was almost breakfast time, as the angry cries of her stomach were reminding her. She made hushing noises down at herself. An opportunity like this was too good to pass up. She grabbed onto the tree's lowest branch and awkwardly managed to swing a leg over it. After twenty minutes of struggling sweatily, she had managed to get about ten feet off the ground. She could see the dark shape of the Bluebottle Thrushslug behind a leaf a foot or two above her head. As she struggled to reach the leaf, the hem of her robes caught on another branch. Luna twisted around to tug it free. But as she did this, she lost her hold on the branch she was lying on top of and slipped off of it. She landed on her back in a mud puddle, knocking the air out of her lungs.

Lying there. Lying there gasping. Lying there for what felt like hours. A dew drop landed on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes slid in and out of focus. Beech tree. Orange blur. Beech tree. Orange blur.

Once she managed to regain her breath, Luna rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes. Her head was throbbing. The mud was soaking her robes. The cold wind was hardening her skin, depriving her of the feeling of having melted into the ground and witnessing the Earth from the perspective of itself. She suddenly wanted to vomit. But she couldn't- it wouldn't come. That was probably a good thing. Her abdomen was too fragile at this point to stand the convulsions without splintering at her waist. She felt brittle and rigid, like paper-thin glass. She tried not to breathe too much- air is too strong for the newly wounded; it's too much like reality to not kick you when you're down. She didn't trust herself to get up. The arrival of another human was necessary to break the endless humming in her head. It swelled just behind her eyes, silencing the wind around her. It felt like the sound of the universe, holding her like a warm mother, cradling her and carrying her- surrounding her and somehow placing a soft blanket-like layer between her and reality, smothering and nurturing at the same time. Its pressure was so great that she should have been able to touch it, but she couldn't move her arms. It was filling her head and was outside of her at the same time. The wind had died down, and she began melting into the earth again. Her arm relaxed and her hand made contact with the mud, but she did not feel how cold it was. She only felt the softness of the mud as it enveloped her and she was somehow one with the Earth- she could feel its heart beating and she was apart from the human race, those who had removed themselves so far from The Mother they had forgotten how She felt. And how like a mother it held her, and she longed for it- she could stay there for all eternity and no one would miss her, no one knew she was there. But she had the Earth, and that was worth so much more, she thought.

A boy had come from her Charms class. She realized she had never properly seen him before, not like she normally saw most people. You weren't there, he had said. He had seen something lying in the mud when he went to Care of Magical Creatures. He had thought it might be her, when she wasn't in class. I asked Professor Flitwick if I could go see if it was you, he said. We're all waiting for you, he said, rather desperately. Luna just looked at him, making sure he was really there. She figured if she could look at him for five minutes straight without him fading or exploding, he was really there. She sometimes looked at her mother, but she always faded. She wasn't there. Luna sometimes wondered if she, herself, was really there, too. But her hands never faded or exploded no matter how long she stared at them. Luna was disappointingly solid.

"Hospital wing."

Luna blinked. She had clearly just heard the words "hospital wing" uttered by thin air. Then she remembered the boy. He was there. Too there, at that. She supposed she would get up. She noticed an old woman to the left of the boy. Maybe she was the one who had spoken. Luna somehow no longer felt the ground and tried to panic, but couldn't. No energy. Very beautiful, the sky. She tried to touch it but couldn't, somehow. But she was in the castle- she didn't remember that. People we doing things to her, putting things under her, setting her down on top of things. but what she felt was not the Earth. She wondered if she was dead. But she couldn't be, she could still feel things. She closed her eyes. And everything was gone.

Neville stared at his porridge. Keeping his eyes open would be a problem today. Fred and George were being unusually quiet. Pity. Normally they were loud enough that Neville could have someone to laugh with, even if he wasn't really part of the conversation. The owl post was arriving. A large barn owl dropped his grandmother's customary you-forgot-this-and-that-and-by-the-way-you're-not-as-good-as-your-father letter into his porridge. He didn't know if he'd bother to open it this time. At least, that was what he always told himself. Told himself he wasn't going to open it. But he always did. Always came crawling back to the familiar. He was starting to sound like his grandmother. Actually, his "inner voice" always sounded like his grandmother. There were no boundaries with her. There never were any. She was always there. Even when she wasn't. In some way, she'd find a way to get to him. Always got to him. A fleck of gold caught his eye. Harry's glasses. He hoped Harry would do well on the first task. He thought he did, at least.

Neville lay on his bed after lunch. A tradition with him, lately. He would read a book on Herbology( _Water Plants of the Mediterranean_ , lately) until his eyelids were uncontrollable in their urge to close. They were heavy. He was heavy. Bloated in spirit. He was sinking. Into the mud. Mud in his brain. Mud, mud, mud. Mud everywhere. Cold. Sinking. Wet.

"Hey, Neville, mate. You disappeared. you were going to give me the Transfiguration homework, remember?" Seamus.

"Oh. Dunno what good it'll do you. I'm rubbish in that class."

"I don't want to copy off you mate. I just need to know what the assignment is."

"Oh."

Neville cringed. The feeling seeped from his eyes into his head and the rest of his face. He hated himself in moments like this. He had moments like this all the time. Not a lot of the time all of the time but all of the time all the time. Too much of the time. He hated himself all of the time, he realized. He mumbled the assignment and closed his eyes. His face melted, as it always did when he closed his eyes that way. Slowly. Deliberately. When he wanted to disappear. Which was all the time. He did disappear, in a way. People's eyes slid over him, never lingered on him. Just slid past. Freeing and depressing. Each in their turn. Lovely not to be seen. To be seen is to mocked or misunderstood. But to never be seen is to be as good as dead. Which is worse? Neville lay back down. Seamus was gone. God. He looked at his alarm clock. Blinked. Time for Potions. Hell.


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

The ceiling of the Hospital Wing was covered in pain. It hovered there, hazy like thin clouds. People had regurgitated their agonies, and literally regurgitated, for a thousand years. There was healing there, too. But that was farther down. That existed only as it occurred. People only want to remember their pain. Pain makes things real. Sometimes too real- but that doesn't stop them from wallowing in it. Wanting it. Loving it. The ceiling knew this, for it had seen it for a thousand years, maybe more. Luna had been there for a thousand years. What felt like a thousand years. But if it felt that way then it must have been. Feeling things seemed to make them true. The ceiling knew that too, she supposed. Ceilings know everything. More than walls, anyway. Ceilings get a bird's eye view. Walls get only one side- one plane. Floors remain passive. They get walked all over. But ceilings. Ceilings know things. That's why they're the first to collapse. All that knowledge- the secrets of a house- weighs down on them like too much snow. To know so much and always keep your silence because that's all you can do. Luna didn't always keep her silence. Some things needed to be said. But there wasn't always someone to say them to. Not just that someone was there- there was plenty of that. No, someone who should be hearing it. Someone who knew enough to appreciate it. Someone who would know what to do with it.

Luna's breath clouded before her in thin, smoky vapors. Skele-grow. It had burned on its way down her throat and into her core. Now it was taking her outside of herself. She wasn't sure if she liked seeing her own breath: it was like watching her soul escape her body, making itself visible to the world. No one was here now. So she didn't mind it much. She put a hand to her side as the sharp pain of a newly forming rib cut into her. She closed her eyes deliberately and tried to make the feeling melt away. It wouldn't go. She couldn't always escape things, no matter how hard she tried. She didn't want to realize that- not just yet, not ever. Her own head had always been her escape. Sometimes, if she pretended hard enough, she could take it all away. Then there was nothing there but the forest and an omnipresent spirit that silently invaded everything like an outwardly calm mist that hid its trouble in the deep, deep center of the storm. It always followed her around as she tried to escape into the softness of the darkness. The darkness was love, in some inexplicable way- it was impossible to grasp. Luna sometimes thought the mist was her- why would it follow her if it was not in some way a manifestation of herself? For she was always fighting and surrendering at the same time. Her own head was never completely her own. She could always feel the presence of another, taunting her and caressing her at the same time. She wanted to give way, to melt into the nothingness she carried with her always and was within always, but giving way might have to mean acknowledging and knowing the physical world, and she couldn't bear to come out of her crypt, she couldn't, it was her.

 _Christmas time is near. Time to see Mum and Dad again._

Neville leaned back, resting his eyes. He felt like he was waiting for something. He usually did. Maybe not waiting. Just feeling apprehensive. He was always nervous. Always looking over his shoulder. Never let your guard down. _Never let your guard down._ After all, his parents had been damaged beyond belief in what should have been a time of love and high spirits. Why shouldn't the same thing happen to him? He was imbecile enough to let it. Had almost had before. Except he had endangered friends. Endangering friends is worse. If you accidently cause your own death you're just stupid. The whole thing remains within yourself. It's tragic. But if you accidently cause someone else's death, you're not just stupid, you're a monster. It's not tragic(for you) anymore, it's just your fault. Then again, if you accidently cause your own death you get to be a lesson. You get to have people's eyes on you forever. You get to have people's eyes on you forever either way. The gaze of others punishes. Shallowly. There's always more to the people to whom the gaze doles out its judgements. That's what people love about it. If they bother to find more out, they get to have the feeling of smug superiority that comes with having uncommon knowledge. If they don't, they still get to have smug superiority- instead it's about feeling like they don't need to figure someone out more than everyone else has. Sometimes Neville wanted everyone to pretend he wasn't there. They already sort of did- but instead of pretending he wasn't there they acknowledged that he was there and pretended he didn't matter. That fact made Malfoy's bullying somehow easier to endure: if Neville didn't matter, Malfoy wouldn't seek him out like he did(he mattered to _Malfoy._ Just Malfoy. The thought was slightly sickening). Then again, it was a bit presumptuous to assume he did matter- that any of this mattered. He sat up and looked out the window. The sky was a deep indigo, and the stars were just starting to appear. The stronger ones winked down at the castle cheerfully, almost teasingly, as if their distance from Earth and everyone on it was a challenge. The faint ones flickered desperately, gasping for air, smothered by the brightness of the moon. Neville got up and approached the window. Put his hand on the cold glass. There was a world out there. He wanted to float up into it and be absorbed by the sky. He wanted to feel like he was floating. Instead of sinking. Sinking like he usually was. He looked down at the lake. It reflected the night sky perfectly. Like a mirror. Treacherous mirror. Beautiful mirror. Its surface was inviting. But he had never been a strong swimmer. He had always been afraid of being swallowed up by the serene belly of the water. Water is unknown. It doesn't fight everything in its path like fire does. It goes around. It always wins. That was significant somehow. That didn't frighten him as much now. The unknown. He pressed his forehead against the window. Leaning towards Elsewhere. Willing himself to be absorbed by it. Willing not acting. He never did anything. Things just happened to him. Or he let them happen when he shouldn't. The darkness was reaching out to him with its delicate yet strong tendrils. Gently but firmly pulling him into itself. He suddenly felt as if he was falling forward. He stepped back hastily and bumped into Fred.

"You alright, Neville?"

"I guess."

"You seen Hermione tonight?"

"No… I mean, I don't think so."

"Alright." Fred lowered his eyebrows. Just a little. Neville took another step backwards, then turned on his heel and ran up the staircase to the boys' dormitory. He grabbed the pitcher of water from his nightstand and splashed a little on his face. Harry entered the room slowly, without making much noise, as though he had been standing in the doorframe- peering into someone else's private world, someone else's troubles. Neville put the jug down too quickly, slopping a little water onto the floor. Harry just stared at it. He looked deeply preoccupied: his eyes had an inverted, hollow look to them. Like they had turned themselves inside out from examining his thoughts so much. Neville dropped his gaze to his shoes, then stooped to wipe up the water. He didn't dare try to use his wand- he didn't trust himself to execute the spell properly, especially not when he was so anxious. Harry left the dormitory without saying anything. Neville sighed.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

The Yule Ball was fast approaching. Luna was startled to find such a thought traipsing its way across her brain. She had never much cared for school functions. She only went to Quidditch matches if she wanted to see someone. Luna loved people, but she didn't like to be around them most of the time. She prefered to observe. She gently shifted her bunched-up robes to the side and examined the bruise on her thigh. Its dark purple contrasting with the pale ivory of her skin. She stared at it. It reminded her of something… Purple. The dirigible plums in her front garden. Home.

She felt eyes on her. Luna slowly lifted her head, one blonde curl gently laying itself down over her left eye. A girl was looking at her, one of the girls in her dormitory. It surprised her that she didn't really know most of their names. Usually she was so good about people. Gazing into them. Each new mind was a new world to explore. She wasn't a Legilimens. That seemed so revoltingly dishonest and perverse. Violating someone's mind. No, she just felt with them. Apart from them but with them. She realized she must have been retreating into herself again- for a moment the girl wasn't there; she was a blur. Luna's eyes always slid out of focus when she was thinking. She pushed her robes back over her knees. The girl walked toward her, smirking a little now.

"So, who're you going to the Yule Ball with?"

"I can't go; I'm a third year, and so are you."

"I know, Loony. You don't have to point it out." Luna raised one eyebrow slightly.

"I would go with the moon, wouldn't you? It's so lovely. Just sitting there, Queen of the night."

"What?"

"Don't you love the moon?"

The girl was walking away. Luna looked down at her hands. They were like frail white birds.

He was going to ask Ginny. He was going to go with Ginny and he would have a nice time. He was going to ask Ginny because, odds were, no one else would. That was rude. It was rude but it was true(at least, he hoped it was). She was a third year, so she wouldn't be able to go unless someone asked. And no one asked the younger kids. He supposed it was rather selfish of him, but he wasn't going alone. He wasn't going to be Neville alone this time. Gran would probably scold him for "going for" low-hanging fruit. But that wasn't fair to Ginny. She was a nice girl. In her own way. Sometimes she would hang out with the blonde girl. That bothered him for some reason. He didn't like her eyes on him. Her eyes were on everyone. He got the feeling that she was judging everyone but didn't consider it judging- more like figuring out. No, figuring out was too calculating. More like wondering at things in a knowing way. He didn't think he liked her. She was too far out of his world of wandering aimlessly while staring at his feet for him to ever feel comfortable around her. She wandered aimlessly while looking at the sky. Not that he'd ever actually talked to her. He didn't really talk to people. Anyway, he was going to ask Ginny. She was just across the common room… No. He couldn't do it right now. How could he? Actually doing it would make it so real. Would make everything real. The more real things were, the more less enjoyable they became. The more they could hurt. He pressed his eyes shut. Trying to melt into the armchair. He figured that if he kept trying to fade from existence like that it must be slowly happening in real life. Too hot in front of the fire. He would have to get up. Damn.


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

Things were warm and beautiful in the pit of Luna's stomach. They swirled around languidly, like koi. She twirled on her toes, trying to match their serene rhythm. She stopped in front of the dormitory window. Wind was rippling the lake, threatening to penetrate its surface, to disrupt its peace. The wind was singing, pushing its voice through the cracks in the castle walls. Luna leaned back, submerging herself in the music. She saw people by the lake. In stands. She realized she had missed the second task. That didn't bother her. She had the castle to herself. It was beautiful when it was quiet. All the secrets started seeping out of the cracks in the walls and the floors and the ceilings. They danced like liquid ghosts, rotating slowly in mid air. Some spasmed wildly and tauntingly, threatening to burst in a glittering display like fireworks. Others crawled low on the floor, oozing quiet, gray fog. They churned the air, pretending to be innocent. Luna knew better than that. She laughed at them as she skipped through the deserted halls. She stopped at the top of the stairs down to the Great Hall and leaned over the banister, catching her breath. A lone dark figure arrested her attention. It stood out against the brightly lit walls of Great Hall like an inkblot, daring to befoul the perfect, glowing paper on which it lay. No, it was more like a black hole- it sucked all the light into itself with avarice. Luna squinted(she needed glasses). Professor Snape stood alone, facing a window. He quickly turned to look at her, and she sucked in a great mouthful of air and sprinted back to the Ravenclaw tower. She slammed the common room door behind her, heart pounding. But laughing. She lay on her back, lifted her legs straight up, and pretended her feet were puppets. She set her legs back down again and shut her eyes. Her hand reached inside her robes. She sighed.

Neville twiddled his thumbs. Had been for the past hour. What was the fucking point, sitting out here watching a lake? Ludo Bagman had been calling out useless things like, "I certainly hope they're breathing okay down there!" every ten minutes. Git. He should have brought some homework with him. He felt like an ass just sitting there. Everyone was just sitting there. Fucking pointless. He knew, he knew he should be rooting hard for Harry. But he was afraid that he didn't care. Harry had always been the tragic figure, always, even though it was basically his fault that Neville basically didn't have parents. He shouldn't think things like that, especially not when Harry had always been kind to him… But sometimes he laughed with the others. Only sometimes. But it still happened. It still hurt. That aside, Harry really could be awful at times. He seemed to think he was so misunderstood, all because everyone loved him and wanted to protect him. And then he went and jeopardized it all because he didn't trust anyone else to handle the situation. Really, his friends were his worst enablers(Neville included), tiptoeing around him when he was angry… Neville was so lost in his musings that he barely noticed Cedric resurfacing. He looked up, and stood up to scream with everyone else, just a second too late. He cringed. All the cheering and sitting in with his head down had given him a throbbing headache.

Once the madness of the second task was over, Neville trudged up to the castle with everyone else. He wanted to run, but he forced himself to adhere to the slow pace favored by those with something worthless yet spectacular to discuss. He hated drawing attention to himself. All he wanted was a shower. Really, it was the only place he could be guaranteed no interruption. The greatest irony of all was that it was the only place he felt truly safe(for the aforementioned reasons) but also the the place in which he was the most exposed. Dean and Seamus had caught up to him.

"Neville, mate, that was really fantastic, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. It was really something."

"I mean, the way Harry pulled both Ron and the French girl out of the water-"

"G-great, wasn't it? I-I have to go. Haven't showered."

Neville cringed again and jogged the rest of the way to the castle.


	6. Chapter 6

**6.**

Luna was waking. At home. In her own bed. She relished the thought of a room to herself- room to let her thoughts flow and swirl around her. They tended to rise up to the ceiling, and she always tried to catch them before the floated away forever… Usually she could do it, if she felt strong enough. Sometimes she just let them go, when she didn't have the energy to hold them; they writhed like snakes, whined and moaned piteously when under captivity. Sometimes she wished she could hold them in the palm of her hand like a small, world-weary bird. Sedentary. But not meant to be. She opened her eyes. As they focused, slowly, she saw the picture of her and her mother. She turned her head to look at the ceiling. It was blue. Pale blue. Like everything. She slid out of bed and tiptoed downstairs. Daddy wasn't there. Usually he'd have breakfast ready…. She looked out the window. Perhaps he was out wandering in the hills.

She dashed out into the garden, into the summer light. She leaned over the ancient fence, eyes tracing the undulating horizon. A tree sliced into the blue sky, ripping a dark gash in the fabric of the heavens, exposing the endless, lightless beyond. Luna stared at it, desperate to understand. Where was she, really? Really? Deep yet depthless. That's how it was. That's how it was, propelled into the distance with cone-shaped waves billowing out behind her in the air. She was hurtling towards other places with the frantic yet graceful gallop of a frightened deer. She swallowed, and shook her head. She wasn't going anywhere, not for a few years, anyway. She was grounded by this tower, and her roots spread out beneath her and tied her to her mother's grave. They leeched water out of it and fed her till she was gulping every breath for fear the water would drown her- it rose high above her head in its attempt to nourish, and it gushed out of her eyes, ears, mouth, nose, with a vengeance. It kept her there, safe and smothered. She couldn't stop. It felt too good to risk breathing. Drowning is safe. The water cradles you and absorbs you until your body dissolves and all your feelings and thoughts, which are really the same thing, are flung outward in a spiral, and then are absorbed by the water, too. Water sets you down gently into itself until there is nothing of you left, and you cease to continue. There is truth in its beauty. Air forcefully pushes against you with its difference and indifference until you bleed, begging for it to stop. And life is preferable to this death.

A speck of brilliant white appeared on the horizon. Daddy was returning. Luna closed her eyes. Pushed her eyelids against her eyes, forcing them to memorize the pictures that danced in her head, reflected on her skin. She felt herself melting into the sky. She was laid flat against its curve. She could see everything glowing up at her with startling clarity. She could see Daddy striding over the hills, a hill covered with every step. He did this for her. He pushed mountains out of her line of sight so she could see the world more clearly. He wanted her to understand. He wanted her to see the sun's light, every drop, without it hurting her eyes. He wanted her to know everything- everything beyond the curtain. He was taken by the wind sometimes. He blew away; he had too little earth and weight in him to be fully present. He was always just a little bit gone. Always. He would cradle her in the palm of his hand, and then he would be gone, and she would be falling endlessly until she crashed into a distraction. And he would pick her up off it, and the cycle would begin. Always. No weight or solidity. That was just the way it was. And she lifted the whole thing up before her for examination. She declared it home.

Neville sat on his bed, reading a potions book. Terror was his master today, and he was learning to arm himself. He figured if he could brush up on his technical know-how, Professor Snape would have a tougher time intimidating him. He knew it was a lost cause and a half, but he clung to hope because he wanted to keep that kernel of light within him alive as long as possible. Candy wrappers littered his bedroom floor. Sugar had dulled his tongue, had dulled his brain. He was ashamed. This need for sweets whenever a stratus cloud of muted despair tugged at him was disgusting. He reminded himself of his mother's sister. After Bellatrix(he thought of recent family history as having pre- and post-Bellatrix periods), Aunt Tessa dove into a Firewhiskey bottle and never came out. The healers told Gran that it was probably what killed her, eventually. As per usual, Gran responded to the event with a slight scoff. Aunt Tessa was not her son. But she had looked sad. She always looked sad when she thought Neville wasn't looking. But Neville was always looking. He didn't talk much, so he looked. He noticed things, but he kept them to himself. No one wants to hear what the awkward kid has to say, unless it happens to be something that makes it easier to turn them into a one-dimensional image, a concept. Not a person. Not normal. A source of comic relief. That's what he was- what a few others were. There were others. Those who knew their place by not knowing their place- people who belonged on the sidelines, who made for an interesting observation, but who weren't supposed to be known. They weren't human. They were weird kids. People thought those kids were beautiful in the way a butterfly is beautiful: decorative and exotic. But not beautiful in the way a lover is beautiful. They weren't something you interacted with, someone you got to know; they were like paintings in a museum: intriguing, but not alive and certainly not real.

Neville had a tendency to cling to thoughts like that. He rolled them over and over and over and over- he liked to wallow in his own victimization. He didn't let it show if he could help it, though. You can be rugged and drink black coffee with whiskey in and have stubble- or is it dirt?- and be bitter, that's okay. But you can't be clumsy and fat-faced and bitter- you'd look like an asshole. If you're already awkward you might as well go for endearingly awkward, not worldly and bitter. He looked out the window. Cedric had been killed… and here he was, being bitter about not being able to show how bitter he was. He felt the uncomfortable warmth of blood rising to his cheeks- ashamed. Cedric had been killed, and Harry nearly killed, and he hadn't lifted a finger to help(his inner voice always sounded like Gran). Everything was real. Everything was uncomfortably real. He wasn't ready. No one was ready. And the _Prophet_ kept publishing these horrible lies…. Gran was furious when she heard. She stormed about the house for ages. She wanted revenge. Neville always knew when she was out for blood. Things broke around the house. As though she were a tempestuous child. He knew by now what was good for him- to hide. He was scared. Maybe Gran was, too.


	7. Chapter 7

**7.**

Luna pushed through the crowds of nervous first years, older students joking with their friends, doting parents, squalling cats, and screeching owls. She dragged her trunk behind her and hoisted it onto the train. She ignored the giggles of students already familiar with her eccentric appearance and the double-takes of those who had never seen her before. She pushed aside the sliding door of an empty compartment, and used Wingardium Leviosa to place her trunk in the rack above the seat. She settled down with one of Daddy's magazines. He had dropped her off outside the Muggle station. He hated drawn-out goodbyes. She imagined it was because of her mother. She always imagined what the reunion would be like- imagined it every night before she went to sleep. She imagined his look of joy and astonishment as laid eyes on her mother for the first time in five years. She imagined her mother's look of love, her arms outstretched to embrace the both of them. Her mother always had that look of love. When Luna was little, she thought her mother carried love in a vial around with her at all times. How else could have always been so serene and happy? Always, she had projected a warmth that enveloped everyone around her. A warmth that Daddy had never gotten close to. Closer when she was still alive, though. When her mother died, a piece of him had gone with her and never come back. Luna would give anything to bring her mother back. She had never entirely managed to convince herself that it was impossible, though she knew full well that it was. She could just see herself inventing the right spell, brewing the right potion. That thought was never far away. Its tendrils snaked into her head, burrowed into her brain, always interwoven into the fabric of her mind, always in the background, ready to spring forward like a beast on the hunt. And that thought was so enticing. She got lost in it. She couldn't imagine life without it. It trapped her under its claws and she didn't care. Her mother was and would always be an essential part of her life. She couldn't imagine it any other way if she tried.

She looked up to see the compartment door being opened. Ginny greeted her cheerily. She had others in tow. Harry Potter, of course. And one other. A boy she knew by sight but not by name. He dropped his gaze to the floor when he noticed her staring. She went back to looking at Harry Potter. She told him she knew who he was, just to be polite. She didn't know the other boy, though. Ginny said his name was Neville Longbottom. It was a rather funny name. She turned it over in her head for a while. After about half an hour, he dug a cactus-looking thing out of his bag. Luna stared at it. It was disgusting, but mesmerizingly so. She was looking at his hands. He had gorgeous hands. Long fingers, dirt under his nails. He had a look of love and pride in his eyes, of immersion in what he was doing. Luna knew that feeling. She associated it with the search for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

Neville was a little nervous. People with eyes like that always made him nervous. That Loony Lovegood girl made him feel like she was burrowing under his skin with her eyes. He brought out the Mimbulus Mimbletonia to give himself something else to focus on. Even when she was just reading her magazine, her presence was felt. Her peculiarities filled up the room. Even if she was just reading, she took up space. She was a blue blot on white paper. Luna the moon. He smiled in spite of his nervousness. Because she lived up to her name: she was a world apart from everyone else, what with their squabbling and their deadly serious problems. She had a world to herself. She laughed at Ron's joke like a maniac, and she was distinctly frosty towards Hermione when she had scoffed at Luna's magazine, after they had returned from prefect duties. So the airy-fairyness was one mode of many. Interesting.

Neville loved showing off the Mimbulus. He knew, he could tell people thought him pointless. He knew people saw him drifting(tripping over) through life as a source of comic relief. Or maybe they didn't. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny and most of the other Gryffindors had always been kind to him. But they weren't close to him. They paired or trioed off, leaving him alone, always. Dean and Seamus, Parvati and Lavender, Fred and George and Lee. He was untouchable, he knew that now. He sometimes didn't notice, so much went on around him, but none of it every touched him. He got tossed about by the ocean just as much as any of them, if not more that some, but at the same time, nobody considered him a participant in the main action. He had never managed to work out the reason for this disconnect. It just seemed a fact of life. This girl was disconnected too. He watched her tuck her wand behind her left ear. But she didn't seem to care. She was a marvel.


	8. Chapter 8

8.

Luna was angry. She couldn't ever remember experiencing sheer dislike before, not like this. But that toad woman carried a cloud with her, always. She dragged it behind her, out of her own sight. When she stopped walking, it enveloped her, it caught up with her. It swirled around her and choked her breath. And the breath of everyone else around. It was a cloud of smoke, Luna decided. One of smoke, not of rain. Rain is cleansing. But this woman only ever got sicker and dirtier, she was so deeply entrenched in her own muck. Her head was a sinkhole- it trapped her inside of it and fed her its own gelatinous mixture of hate. This woman lived in a precarious world, and she had to rearrange things. People tried to upset her balance on purpose, and she had to retreat, put this weight on this side of the scale, and everything would be justified when she emerged. She had done so much tidying up she didn't seem human anymore. The world was black and white, except when she needed nuances. Luna felt a little bad for her- she seemed lonely in her sinkhole. She was familiar, too. Hauntingly so. Luna felt a black hole in her head, and in Daddy's. Not a sinkhole, a black hole. Much cleaner. But she was scared. Daddy seemed to always be spinning. He whirled gently, so that things wouldn't touch him. He floated above the rocks and streams and above the people too. It scared her sometimes. But she could understand why it had to be that way. Mum had been a wall between him and the world. When she was still there, the door of the house opened into a fantasy kingdom. Then everyone flew. But Mum could deal with things when they came crashing down. Daddy couldn't. Now that she was gone, he had no need for the outside world, except when hunting for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. What scared him was unreal. So he believed Harry Potter because he was not afraid. So did she. It made sense. She didn't read the Prophet much, but she knew denial when she saw it. She knew what running scared looked like. She was her mother's daughter. Or at least, she tried to be.

She was in the library. And a Gryffindor girl was approaching her. Hermione, she remembered. Rain was hammering on the windows. It wanted to be let in. The girl was speaking. Luna listened. And she smiled, both of them. Time for action. Serious business, now.

Neville was a bit nervous. He couldn't believe they had asked him, of all people. He supposed he had a legacy to uphold, revenge to exact. Gran would be proud. That he was taking action for once- but it hadn't been his idea, so did it count? He tried to make it count in his head. He took some deep breaths. The cold air was blowing on the nape of his neck, making him shiver. He closed his eyes. Picturing the photo of his parents Gran kept on the mantelpiece. They were smiling and waving up at the camera. His father was holding him. Their smiling faces gradually shifted into their present hollow, vacant expression. Neville shuddered. He twisted the gum wrapper that he kept in his pocket and smoothed it out again. He took one last deep breath. And he pushed open the door of the Hog's Head. The place was already starting to become quite crowded, and that pleased him. He could easily avoid the spotlight in a group of this many people. Hermione was clearing her throat. She had the look of someone who had been steeling herself for a long time. Her edges were sharp. Harry was withdrawn. He had shadows under his eyes, and he seemed to be longing to yell at someone. Neville had noticed this- Harry sealing himself into a cavern. And he soaked up its shadows, rolled around in them.

Neville shook his head, trying to make himself focus. He was very supportive of Harry, always. He chimed in every now and then to keep him from doubting himself. He knew the world needed people like Harry. Who else was going to save everyone from Dark forces? Someone like him? Never. He smiled to himself as he signed his name on the slip of parchment Hermione had carefully extracted from her bag. He could help, after all. He had to chime in every now and again. Everyone did.

Luna skipped along the corridors, not bothering to contain her excitement. She was going to a meeting. She was going to spend time with people. People who hadn't teased her before. She was going to meet people. She was going to know them.

Neville should have known. Of course, of course, he would be the one person left without a partner. Nobody wanted to be near him. Not even to practice disarming. He supposed his obvious lack of skill could be disarming- and then re-arming, once his opponent had stopped laughing. Harry was kind enough to partner him after he'd seen to everyone else. But he would do this. He had to. He was done, absolutely done, with being the bumbling dunce. Whether or not that would change remained to be seen. He sighed to himself. He didn't want to be a hero. He just wanted to make Gran proud for once. Unfortunately, not being a hero and making Gran proud appeared to be mutually exclusive. He braced himself for the always unnerving sensation of losing his wand.

Luna never stopped skipping, even when she got to her dormitory. She just kept on skipping in her head. She was rather good at disarming people. They hadn't seemed to be expecting that- they expected her to get distracted, like she usually did. But she hadn't. She opened the window and let her pride soar out of the room and over the grounds like a phoenix. She was happy, and so hopeful.

The tide of nervousness rose in Neville's throat, as it usually did when it came time to partner up during D.A. meetings. It was December, just before the Christmas holidays, and the Room of Requirement was decorated accordingly, which Harry seemed a tad embarrassed about, for some reason. People were chatting , breaking off into pairs and trios with their friends, even singing carols here and there. High spirits were contagious during Christmas time at Hogwarts. Neville looked around the room anxiously. He half hoped Harry would take pity on him again, but he seemed more interested in wandering around the room, remarking upon people's form and such things. Neville gulped and began to look elsewhere. Then he noticed he wasn't the only person in the room without a partner. That Looney Lovegood girl was standing at the back by herself, staring off into space. Neville sighed and walked over to her. The sound of his approaching footsteps alerted her to his presence, and she fixed her pale blue gaze on him.

"Hello. I'm-"

"You're Neville Longbottom. We met on the train." Her eyes were boring into his face like drills.

"Y-yes. Of course. How silly of me."

"Why silly?"

"I should have remembered. I mean, I should've if you did." He felt his face starting to burn and looked down so she wouldn't notice.

"I don't care, you know."

He looked up. "What?"

"I don't care. About whether you remember or not." It seemed important to her that she say this.

"I don't understand."

"You looked nervous, and I wanted to set you at ease," she said matter-of-factly.

"Thank you." Neville smiled uncomfortably. She was still staring.

"My pleasure. Shall we practice?"

They worked on stunning for the duration of the meeting. When it was over, she lingered a bit.

"Goodbye Neville. You're quite nice." She turned to go.

"H-happy Christmas," he said. It came out a bit strangled, like the phrase had had to fight its way out of his throat. He stared after her. Now he was the one staring. He cringed, and turned away.


	9. Chapter 9

**9.**

Neville followed his grandmother through the false shop window. Even though the hospital was full of the chatter of injured witches and wizards, the cries of children, Neville's footsteps seemed to echo, their sound filling up the room and his head. He was going to see mum and dad again. He didn't know if he could stand it. He couldn't stand not to see them. Seeing them in the flesh was a reminder of what he could've had. He knew he had been robbed of so much. He mentally kicked himself. _He_ had been robbed of so much? _He_ had been robbed? What he had lost was nothing to what his parents had lost. He, Neville, was still very much in full possession of all his faculties, limited though they might be. He still had a shot at having some sort of a life. Not that he was doing much with it. He shook his head so hard his neck hurt. He _was_ doing something; he was in the DA, he was fighting. He was going to fight, anyway. He wasn't going to let everything be over like he always had before. He wanted to do something, not have things done to him because he was there. Because he was defenseless, shaky as a colt. He hated lying on the ground like a puddle, waiting for people to splash in him just so something would happen for once. Couldn't something just happen for once?

They had reached the door of his parents' ward. Gran was already pushing it open, maintaining an iron grip on his forearm.

"Come now, Neville, dear, it's Christmas day. You shouldn't look so glum."

Neville tried to smile. He caught sight of his reflection in the door's window. He looked as though he had just swallowed lemonade with no sugar in. He frowned at himself and went inside. Professor Lockhart greeted him jovially, like always. Neville wasn't entirely sure why Lockhart was there. He had never in three years asked the Healer, fearing Gran's reaction to such inquisitiveness. Neville tore his eyes off Lockhart. They came to rest on his mother. The Healer had already helped her out of bed. Her eyes were as sunken in as always. Always so blank. He sometimes wondered what she saw. Did she see him? Did she recognize him? He knew the answer was no, had to be no, but he couldn't help hoping. Hoping that somewhere in there she saw her son. Somewhere in there she loved him.

Neville reached out to take her hand. He had been warned by both the Healer and Gran not to hug her, as the feeling of constriction might alarm her. And then she would be back to how she was for the first few years. When he had turned thirteen, Gran had sat him down and told him everything. It was more everything than he needed. So much more than he needed. He remembered her drinking a gin and tonic. She would smack her lips in a satisfied way after she could see that something in particular had shocked him. Sometimes he wondered if she was proud that his parents had been important enough to warrant such a fate. He shuddered slightly. She wasn't a monster. Not evil, not horrible. Just… he didn't know what she was sometimes. He hadn't realized until a year or two later that the gin was probably helping her through it, and she was doing what she would have wanted.

Gran had said that the first few years were the worst. She wasn't allowed to bring a child into their ward, for fear that the experience would be too scarring. The recent damage had made them so unstable. What little magic they had left created chaos around them. Their agony was being turned outward because they had spent their last sane moments resisting the urge to give information. They couldn't hold things within them anymore. So everything around them broke. Shattered like they had. Eventually they calmed down. They must have realized on some level that they were in a safe environment. But they became less responsive. They were a little more gone every year.

Someone called his name. He turned around to see Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. And then Gran started the introductions. There was no stopping her after that point. He would have to tell them. And he did. He hated them as he did it. He hated Harry and his friends. He wished they would laugh at him. He needed a reason to feel aggressive. For the second time since joining the D.A. he realized how much he wanted- needed- revenge. He needed this never-ending parade of grief to end.

Neville took the gum wrapper his mother held out to him. He put in his pocket, silently vowing to save it, like he had with all the others.

* * *

Luna felt like flame. She always did when she came back from seeing Daddy at Christmas. He would sit in front of the fire and fill the room with tales of his youth. Searching for the elusive Snorkack. She liked the stories because her mother was in most of them. She learned a little more about her every time she heard them. The room would expand to fit all these figures as they danced across the walls. The way he spoke, she could see them. They were shadows that pirouetted gracefully in behind her eyes. She watched them like film. She stored them for when she needed some comfort. When she needed the warmth of her father's voice around her like a quilt- but it wasn't the same without him there. But she was always glad to be back at Hogwarts. Daddy was magnificent, but sometimes she needed solid ground underneath her feet. Her mother was the earth, if she remembered correctly. Her mother was the earth, Daddy was the air, and Luna was water. She was the intermediary, she was the link. They both needed her and she needed them. They had floated along together in complete peace.

Now her father's need was more desperate. He clung to her like a vine seeking water, like she was the only thing keeping him alive. A vine is not meant to live without earth. Earth gives rise to all things that grow. Too much water can kill. Luna brushed a curl out of her face. The winter sun shone unforgivingly down on the courtyard. She must look pale and unhealthy in this light. She remembered what her mother would have said- "freckles are kisses from the sun." Luna twirled on her toes, deciding to enjoy the sudden warmth.

She opened her eyes to find someone staring at her curiously. It was Neville. A smile was tugging at the left corner of his mouth ever so slightly. He had dimples. They were nice. Luna smiled at him.

"Have you had a good holiday?" he said, tentatively, as though afraid that she would take offense. She nodded, wondering why he would be scared. "Oh good," he said, a little more brightly. He apparently needed time to gain confidence. But he was sad, she knew. She took a step closer to him, examining him. He blinked.

"How are you?" she said.

He stammered a little. "I'm fine."

Luna frowned slightly. She knew he was lying for the sake of manners. Mum called that inverted courage.

"I don't think so," she said. "But you will be."

* * *

Neville raised his eyebrows, a little taken aback. However, this was Loony(Luna, he corrected himself) Lovegood, and he was used to this sort of thing from her. He admitted to himself that she no longer creeped him out- she just made him curious.

He took a deep breath.

"Can we talk again sometime?" he asked.

Luna positively beamed.


End file.
